1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of warehousing and storing articles in a storage facility, such as an automatic storage. More specifically, the invention relates to a warehousing method, which involves preliminary calculation of the amount of articles to be out of storage capacity of the storage facility, performing warehousing setting so as to store the articles which cannot be stored in the storage facility in question, in other storage means, and thereafter performing the warehousing of the articles.
The present invention also relates to a method for warehousing and storing delivering articles for storing and delivering articles in and from a storage facility, such as an automatic warehouse. Particularly, the invention relates to a warehousing and delivering method employing a storage facility including a primary storage facility having a specialized storage portion for exclusively storing preliminarily predetermined articles and a common storage portion for storing random articles, and an auxiliary storage facility having a common storage portion.
2. Description of the Related Art
(A) A prior disclosure of a warehousing method appears in Japanese Examined Patent Publication (Kokoku) No. 62-21681, which discloses an article handling facility, wherein pallets (articles) are transported to a transporting facility and are stored in a three dimensional automatic storage facility, and are delivered to a picking shelf for temporarily storing therein, after which a desired amount of the articles are taken out from the picking shelf.
However, the above-mentioned prior art concept has the following problems.
Namely, the article handling facility disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 62-21681 does not discuss nor suggest the capacity for preliminary judgement as to whether all amounts of the articles intended to stored can be received within the intended storage facility or not. If the warehousing operation is performed without knowing that the capacity of the vacant storage shelf is smaller than the intended amount of articles to be stored, the storage shelf would become full before the intended amount of articles are stored. At this time, when warehousing operation is performed in random order, it is possible to leave the articles which are indeed required to be stored (e.g. shorting the stock amount), among the intended articles. In such case, the articles which are already stored but which are less important than the articles just left, are removed from the storage shelf to make vacant space for the just left necessary articles. This is clearly wasteful work.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a warehousing method, in which a preliminary calculation is performed to check whether all intended amounts of articles can be stored in the intended storage facility, and if not all intended amount of articles can be stored, the articles which are indeed required to be stored (shorting the stock amount) are given higher priority in the warehousing operation.
(B) A prior art for a method of warehousing and delivering articles in and from a storage facility is disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 59-28481. This publication discloses a warehousing and delivering method involving a three dimensional storage concept, in which the storage area groups of a three dimensional storage shelves are separated into a warehousing and delivering common zone and a stocking zone, where the transferring of the articles between the warehousing and delivering common zone and the stocking zone is performed by means of a stacker crane in an idle time zone, such as night time, in which warehousing and delivering operations are stopped to perform warehousing and delivery.
However, the above-mentioned prior art holds the following drawbacks.
Although the warehousing and delivery methods in the three dimensional storage concept disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 59-28481, can effectively perform warehousing and delivery by separating the storage area groups of the three dimensional storage shelves into the warehousing and delivery common zone and stocking zone, and transferring the articles between the stocking zone and the warehousing and delivery common zone, there is no disclosure or suggestion for warehousing the articles in the storage facility including a primary storage facility having a specialized storage portion for exclusively storing preliminary set articles and a common storage portion for storing random articles, as well as an auxiliary storage facility having the common storage portion. Furthermore, the method disclosed in the above-identified publication is directed to a technology for efficiently warehousing and delivering articles in and from a single storage facility. Such method will not create the problem in a pushup type storage system in which the articles stored earlier among the same kind of articles are delivered earlier. However, the publication has no disclosure or suggestion for performing a pushup manner warehousing and delivery in only one of a plurality of storage facilities.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a warehousing and delivering method, in which a storage facility including a primary storage facility having a specialized storage portion and a common storage portion, and an auxiliary storage facility having the common storage portion, and in which warehousing is performed so as to facilitate pushup system delivery for the same kind of articles so that the articles stored earlier are delivered earlier.